om on her cheeks was at its
highest point of contrast with the surrounding drab when she arrived at
the door of the Red House, and saw Mr. Godfrey Cass ready to lift her
from the pillion. She wished her sister Priscilla had come up at the
same time behind the servant, for then she would have contrived that
Mr. Godfrey should have lifted off Priscilla first, and, in the
meantime, she would have persuaded her father to go round to the
horse-block instead of alighting at the door-steps. It was very
painful, when you had made it quite clear to a young man that you were
determined not to marry him, however much he might wish it, that he
would still continue to pay you marked attentions; besides, why didn't
he always show the same attentions, if he meant them sincerely, instead
of being so strange as Mr. Godfrey Cass was, sometimes behaving as if
he didn't want to speak to her, and taking no notice of her for weeks
and weeks, and then, all on a sudden, almost making love again?
Moreover, it was quite plain he had no real love for her, else he would
not let people have _that_ to say of him which they did say. Did he
suppose that Miss Nancy Lammeter was to be won by any man, squire or no
squire, who led a bad life? That was not what she had been used to see
in her own father, who was the soberest and best man in that
country-side, only a little hot and hasty now and then, if things were
not done to the minute.

All these thoughts rushed through Miss Nancy's mind, in their habitual
succession, in the moments between her first sight of Mr. Godfrey Cass
standing at the door and her own arrival there. Happily, the Squire
came out too and gave a loud greeting to her father, so that, somehow,
under cover of this noise she seemed to find concealment for her
confusion and neglect of any suitably formal behaviour, while she was
being lifted from the pillion by strong arms which seemed to find her
ridiculously small and light. And there was the best reason for
hastening into the house at once, since the snow was beginning to fall
again, threatening an unpleasant journey for such guests as were still
on the road. These were a small minority; for already the afternoon
was beginning to decline, and there would not be too much time for the
ladies who came from a distance to attire themselves in readiness for
the early tea which was to inspirit them for the dance.

There was a buzz of voices through the house, as Miss Nancy entered,
min